“Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord:..”
Kevin Leman says in his books on raising children, “B does not happen until A gets done.” Sounds really simple and it is until you try to implement it. Take it from a father of four girls. In reality, everyone wants B and does not want to do A because A means work, something we might not be ready to do at that time. The world even has a saying that supports this, “All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.” Work is inevitable! In fact, hard work should be your best friend. Turning this away from work and on to the order of things again, “B does not happen until A gets done!”
In chapter 36 and 37 of Isaiah, we read about the king of Assyria laying siege on Jerusalem. Hezekiah is the king at this time and sends out his messengers to see if a deal can be made. The deal is simple, the people get to come with the Assyrian king to different lands and he will level Jerusalem, or they all die and he will still level Jerusalem. He even mocks the Lord God in front of all the people on the wall saying that “Hezekiah is fooling you if you are relying on the Lord God to save you.” Dangerous words.
This has everyone in the city tearing their clothes and putting on sackcloth. Hezekiah lays the letter before the Lord, prays to Him, and asks the Lord to intervein. Now, some of us can identify with Hezekiah here. Some of us make decisions everyday that affect many lives. When everything we have done seems to go wrong up to a certain point and everyone around us thinks we are crazy for waiting for the Lord’s timing; it would be easy to break down and try to fix it our way.
Well, Hezekiah went to the Lord first. While Jerusalem was under siege, the people are mourning because they fear death. A mighty king that has just laid waste to everything around them is camped at the front gate and Hezekiah goes before the Lord? At this point in the story, most of us would think the Lord has checked out and left the building leaving all the people to die by the hand of a foreign king.
Yes, Hezekiah went to the Lord and prayed. You can read the prayer in verses 14-20, it is an amazing prayer, short and to the point. Verse 21 is a great one, it says simply, “Then Isaiah sent a message to Hezekiah.” Divine order: you pray and the Lord answers. The next morning 185,000 men are dead at the gates of the city. Also, the king of Assyria and all the people who supported him are dead.
This world will deliver us up to the worst kinds of things such as death, sickness, money issues and so much more. We are not immune to all of these but we can choose divine order instead of panic. Things were a 10 on the bad scale for Hezekiah but he kept the divine order right. He went to the Lord in prayer first before he made a life altering decision.
Prayer should be the first thing you do in everything. We are God’s children. For the parents out there, if your kid is in trouble, do you ignore them? Do you choose to sit back and watch bad things play out or do act and rescue the kid? Of course you would act to save your child. You are God’s children and he sent his son to die on a cross so you could close to Him. He loves you and is not mad at you but seeks only to love you. If Jesus spent time praying then we should as well. Things may get bad and if it does, remember Hezekiah and how he went to the Lord before he acted. Simply put, pray early and often.
Prayer: Father, so often we see and act, or see and react not giving a second thought to praying first. When things hit the fan, I pray that we all would stop and pray before we act just like Hezekiah did. I pray that we all would seek the Lord for all things under heaven. The Bible tells us that we have been given the Holy Spirit to guide us in our faith while we plow through life. Lord, I pray that we would pray early and often declaring your Word over all things. In Jesus name, amen.
Let It Go 
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